In North America, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) is considered to be the fifth most common cancer [1]. Five-year relative survival rates for all stages of NHL in the United States from 1992-1997 was only about 53%. The diseases is correlated with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II self-antigen which is highly expressed in 95% of B-cell NHL. HLA class II usually exhibits a lack of immunogenicity which prevents initiation of immune responses in afflicted individuals and leads to disease progression. Accordingly, there is a need for a method of enhancing the ability of the immune system to recognize the HLA class II antigen.
Peptide mimics have been shown to elicit specific immune responses against self-antigens, including carbohydrate antigens such as Lewis antigens and S. pneumoniae serotype 4 capsular polysaccharide [2,3]. In several clinical trials, another kind of mimic to self-antigen, an anti-idiotypic antibody, has been shown to be able to elicit anti-self-antigen immune response [4-7]. However, there have been no peptide mimics developed to date that can elicit an immune response to the HLA class II antigen.